Hosts of Rebecca

by Alexander Cordell

  Met her one Sunday, resting that Sunday from underground at Ponty. I was wandering down the lanes near Ferry with the Devil sitting on my shoulder looking for idle hands. Bright was the sun, and the world in love with the newborn spring and the hedges all leafy and the azalea bushes golden.

  “Good afternoon, Jethro Mortymer,” said Dilly, looking glorious.

  “Good afternoon, Dilly Morgan.”

  She was picking primroses, fingers dainty and plucking, showing a yard of black-stockinged leg as she leaned to the hedges, so I plucked a posy for her.

  “For me?” said she delighted.

  “For you,” I said, and pinned it on her breast.

  “O, my,” said she. “Hell and damnation for us if that Polly Scandal do see us. Loose me quick, Jethro Mortymer.”

  “One kiss first?”

  “There is damned forward.”

  “Just one for spring, Dilly.”

  Soft were her lips.

  “Another for summer?”

  “Good grief, man, you’ll have me in the heather. One for summer, then, and no more seasons.”

  Wind whisper.

  “Eh,” she said. “Grown up lately, is it?”

  “One for autumn,” I said, “don’t waste time.”

  “Damned brutal, you are,” said she, pushing and shoving. “Eh, and none of that here, Jethro Mortymer! Stop it this minute!” And she fetched me a swing with a fist that I just ducked in time.

  “Right, you!” said she, furious. “Now you’ve done it. Tell me dad, I will. Front row chapel, mind, strict deacon. Virtue has its own reward and it don’t include that. He’ll be up to see your mam in under five minutes.”

  I went like something scalded.

  Hettie Winetree next. Second best choice was Hettie, hardly the figure for courting, but you can’t be choosey in spring. Where Hettie went out Dilly went in, but her mam was having trouble with her still, it seemed, yearning for the facts of life. Sitting on a barrel was Hettie Winetree with a straw in her mouth, dressed more for farming than Sunday, with a lace cap on her little black curls and her sleeves rolled to the elbow.

  “Good afternoon, Hettie Winetree.”

  “O, God,” said she, going crimson.

  “Haven’t seen much of you lately,” I said. “You free for a walk?”

  “Welcome, I must say,” which was a step in the right direction, but she went pretty frigid when we got to the woods. Just peeps and shivers at this the target of her visions, this the torment of her dreams.

  “Down by here,” I said, patting grass.

  “O, my,” said she.

  “Come on, come on,” I said.

  “And what will happen then, Jethro Mortymer?”

  “One guess is as good as another, girl.”

  “You heard about Beth Shenkins?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Little Beth Shenkins sat on grass and she hasn’t been the same girl since.”

  I eyed her.

  “Down by here came poor little Beth – courting that Ianto Powell from Cefn, thought it was for kissing, see? But she came home at midnight short of a garment, was in child by that Ianto three months later, beaten by her mam, cast out by her dad, all in under a week.” She stopped for breath.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Ended in the workhouse, caught a chill scrubbing, child died at birth and her dead three days later, poor Beth Shenkins. Just thinking the same thing could happen to me. That likely?”

  “More than likely,” I said.

  Skirts up and running, with looks over her shoulder to see if I was following.

  Pretty good spring so far, but probably for the best, for I couldn’t help thinking of Dilly.

  Black Boar tavern now, leaning over a quart. All the men were strangers save Ezekiel Marner who eyed me, blue-faced, red-eyed, cranked over his mug. I grinned at my thoughts. Could be that special punishments were being handed out for spring fulfilments. And up came Sixpenny Jane, smiling, and leaned her arms on the counter opposite.

  “What is your pleasure, Jethro Mortymer?”

  “A mug,” I said, looking away.

  “Eh, hoity-toity tonight, is it?”

  “No, just drinking.”

  “You seen Justin Slaughterer?”

  I shook my head.

  “Looking for you, mind,” she said. She pushed the ale towards me and I blew off the froth and drank.

  “Aye?”

  “Breathing fire and brimstone, too. Drunk as a coot on ice, he is. Squaring accounts, he said. You mind.”

  Didn’t really hear her. Strange is ale with strong light above it, the image of the face: the bulbous nose, the slits of eyes, the heaped cheekbones; all refracting and shimmering in the amber haze; the hop-flecked mouth, the mad dog froth of the lips, the sabre teeth of the tiger, all is flung back, warping the vision as it warps the wits.

  “You listening, Jethro. Raging is Justin, out for blood.”

  “O, aye?”

  And ale is like life, I thought, the gentry froth at the top, puffed up and pompous, the dregs of beggars at the bottom. Lower the mug and leave the dregs. Fighting, fighting, I thought, and for what? For another master, a dreg of a master; beggar or gentry they are tuned to greed. One pig in exchange for another one uneducated. I looked past Jane, thinking.

  “Gone down to your house just now, you see him?”

  “Who, now?” I asked.

  “Justin Slaughterer. What the devil is wrong with you tonight?”

  “Morfydd’s back home. She will give him slaughterer. Another mug.” I tossed her a penny. “One for you,” I said.

  “You’ll be drinking in good company,” said Jane. “You heard about Betsi?”

  “No.”

  “Courting strong, Waldo Bailiff.”

  “Good match,” I said.

  “Turned over a new leaf, has Betsi, mind. And when Betsi turns we both turn, Gipsy May and me. A house of virgins this, all we lack is lamps. Taking the cloth, the three of us, sackcloth and ashes henceforth. Respectable now, says Betsi, convents don’t come into it. But my time is my own after closing, of course.” She dimpled and smirked and fluffed her hair. “You free tonight, Jethro Mortymer?”

  I looked at her. The youth of her was reaching over the counter; skidding over the wet teak between us as a clarion sail on a sea of ale. I blinked away the fumes, unused to drinking. She smiled, head on one side.

  “Have to make your mind up quick,” she said. “Here comes Justin.”

  The shouting of the room died to silence as I turned. The door slammed as Justin heeled it. Men muttered, their eyes switching from Justin to me. North country colliers, mostly; massive men, hardened to iron by the tools of their trade, sensing the vendetta.

  “Away,” whispered Jane, gripping the counter.

  I turned on my elbow and faced him.

  I knew Justin Slaughterer in this mood; the trash of manhood, this one – six fights a week and a woman thrown in. I may have had an inch on him but he was a full two stone the heavier, deep-chested, with black hair sprouting round the ring of his collar. He smiled then, his white teeth showing in the tan of his face. Handsome devil.

  “Right you, Mortymer,” he said, and slipped off his coat.

  “Better outside, Justin.”

  “Outside last time, boy. Better in here.” Hands on hips he wandered towards me. Thought he was drunk at first, but his feet were steady; as sober as me. Jane came round the counter, elbowing aside the audience.

  “This is Betsi’s night off, Justin,” said she. “Outside now, we want no fighting in here.”

  Justin swept her behind him with one arm, grinning.

  “Rebecca, is it, Mortymer? Handy enough with fifty behind you.”

  “You fool, shut your mouth,” I said.

  “I am here to shut yours,” said Justin, and leaped.

  I got him with the ale as he blundered past me, worth the price of the quart, and he tripped in his plunge and went over a table, smash
ing it to matchwood. A man laughed, the men lined the walls. Justin knelt, wiped the beer from his eyes, and rose.

  It was strange that I knew no fear. Not a nerve moved in me as he planted his feet for swinging. Calmness is the key to it when handling bruisers, my father had taught me; the watchful eye more important than the fist: left knee turned in to ward off kicks, up on tiptoe and ready to drop, never stand square to the swing. The eye switches to the handy bottle, to the broken table where the wooden spears stick up white; the eye sticks on Justin’s chin – thick and bristled that chin, begging for the cross. The smack hit to stop, the slanted hit to cut. And the swing came wide as Justin rushed. Stepping inside it I hooked him square like Fair Day, and his chin went up as he closed and gripped me, and he went to one knee and lifted me high. Locked, I went over with him on top of me. Legs sprawling, we fought, and I rose first.

  “Mind the furnishings!” Jane now, screaming. “Every stick you break you pay for, remember!”

  Had to keep away from him, I knew, for he was twice as strong as me. I took the middle of the floor now, tried to sidestep him but hit the counter, and he wheeled and gripped me but I slung him off and stopped him dead with a left, and crossed him again as he roared back in. I thought of Mari as I fought, trying to anger myself into greater strength. Up against the counter again now with the thudding impact of his fifteen stone against me, my back arched over the rail as he fought for my throat. Slipping away I tried to cross him, missed and fell into his arms again. Again the counter; sliding along it now, hitting short. I got him away somehow but he rushed again, keeping close quarters while I wanted him away. And every time he rushed I caught him square. Like hitting trees, for his onward rush bore me backwards. Sickening the smack of that rail in my back. Panic came then, for my strength was ebbing. I saw his face flushed and brutal, eyes gleaming, mouth gaping, gasping at breath, and I swung for the first time and slammed the mouth shut, but still he came on, and I saw the fist rushing up as the counter stopped me. Big as a tub that fist as I tried to ride it, but it took me square in the body, doubling me up. The lamp reeled over the ceiling as he hit me left and right full strength, and I slid along the rail seeking escape, but still he thudded them home. Weary, in agony, I sought a hold, but he flung me off and hit out again. Through slits of eyes I saw Justin now. His face was bleeding, his hair on end, but he was calm as he held me with one hand and measured for the blow. I tried to duck it but it caught me flush, spinning me sideways. The lamplight exploded, and I sank down, gripping his legs. Just peace then, lying at his feet, with the lace of his hobnails in the corner of my eye. I tried to climb up him they said later, but he hit me down, thumping, thumping.

  I remember nothing more till I woke in the arms of Jane.

  “Eh, there’s a damned mess,” she whispered, and held me.

  I blinked about me at the barn next to the tavern, at the oil lamp hanging on the gnarled beam above us, and the face of Jane smiled down. She was sitting in the hay with her back against a tub, and me across the legs of her, my head in her lap, and the flannel she was dabbing with was red. Pretty good, me. Cuts over each eye, lips swollen as a Negro’s, and split. Very handsome, said Jane, with my new humped cheekbones, one going black.

  “Teeth?” said she, and her hair swept my face.

  I tried them with my tongue. “All there,” I said.

  “I will have him, mind,” she said then. “Bricks and bottles, but I will bloody have him,” and I felt her body tense with its sudden fire. Thin, her dress.

  “Leave him,” I said. “At least he fought fair.”

  “With me hanging on to his hobnails and three men dragging him off?”

  I didn’t remember that.

  “And opening the door and dumping you out like a sack?”

  Too sick just then to realize the indignity.

  “Fair?” she exclaimed, indignant. “The men back in there told him you’d have killed him in the open. Half his weight and no room to move in! Eh, I will have him for this. Justin Slaughterer, is it? I will do him in dripping lumps and still carving.”

  Pretty good lying there with her flushed face above me for I had never been so close to wickedness before. And youth is good – awake now I could feel the strength sweeping back, but I was far too interested in Jane just then to have thoughts of Justin. Her fingers were soft on my face and I saw the high curve of her cheek shadowed and beautiful in the lamplight. Harlot one moment, mother the next. Many and varied are the characters of women I have found since, but all are mothers. I rose, unsteady, my hands to my face, waiting for strength to grip me then. When I uncovered my eyes Jane was kneeling at my feet, smiling up.

  “Jethro,” she said.

  I looked down.

  “Jethro, do not go,” she said, and opened her arms.

  But something in the night called and turned me.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  It was cold in the wind outside the bar. The water butt was near and I plunged my head into it and let the trickles of freeze run down to my waist to shock me into sense and feeling, and I stood there looking at the stars, drawing great breaths. For many minutes I stood in growing anger: something from my father this, a blind obstinacy that forbade any movement save back into the tavern.

  “I will take you home,” said Jane behind me, but I scarcely heard her. Instead I heard the hoarse laughter of men, the guffaws of Justin, the high-pitched shrieks of Gipsy May who had taken the counter in place of Jane.

  Couldn’t go home, to be thumped by Justin every time he saw me.

  I looked at the tavern door, at the bar of light beneath it. Mugs were thumping the counter, money chinking.

  “No,” whispered Jane, pulling at me. “Jethro, no!”

  I shook her off, remembering my father. First time a Mortymer had been dumped outside, I reckoned.

  “Jethro!”

  I walked up the steps, slipped the catch and shouldered the door. The light was blinding as I went inside, kicked the door shut and leaned against it. All faces swung, and Justin’s swung last, and never will I forget the look he gave; jaw dropped, frowning, mug half raised.

  “Right, you, Justin,” I said, and walked towards him. And he laughed as I reached him, smacking the counter, head flung back, roaring.

  “Well, give you credit!” he shouted in the second before I hooked him, and his mug went up and he reeled away, his stool clattering. After him now, hitting to go through him as I turned him to the counter and he screamed as an injured child as the rail caught him, bouncing him on to the next one. Raging was Justin, and I was cool, with a brain snatched from the head of my father; cool as ice, measuring distance, calculating. The place was bedlam now, tables being cleared, chairs hooked aside and men flat against the walls, with Gipsy up on the counter fisting and screaming and threatening damages. A rush from Justin nearly upended her as I stepped aside, and I pulled him off her and crossed him solid, bringing him down. It should have killed him, but he got up slowly, spat blood and ran, clawing for a hold. Things reversed now as I turned him to the counter, snapping back his head with lefts, and I saw the boot coming and caught it, lifting high. Off-balance, he teetered on one foot, and I saw the curve of his chin and took my time. This staggered him. His eyes were glazed as he came off the counter and I swung with all my strength. The blow took him full and Gipsy screamed. Up on the counter went Justin, and me after him, pitiless, for to be beaten is one thing but dumped is another. Shoulders slipping, legs waving, he lay across the counter. A hand under his heel, I helped him over. Ten pounds damages by the sound of the glass, but not a sound from Justin. Wiping sweat from my eyes, I peeped. Sleeping like a baby, standing on his head, so I went round after him and pulled Gipsy out of it, getting my shoulder under him. Jane had opened the door and I carried Justin over and threw him out to the cheers of the men. Spreadeagled he fell and laid there, as he had spreadeagled a score of men, and I went back to the counter and drank what was left of his ale, doing the custom.

&nbs
p; Stupid is fighting.

  “You did him pretty well,” said Jane.

  With the tavern door shut behind me I turned to the sound of her voice, for fighting and women go together, handed down from the age of the club.

  I did not reply. Just stood watching her. Tombstone blackness just then, but the night came brilliant in sudden majesty, bringing her to flesh and shape, and I went to the door of the barn. Ghostly she looked, her hairpins out, hair tumbling down, as if she would fade with the first touch.

  “Never seen one done better,” she said. “The boy can’t complain.”

  Just stood watching; watching her eyes narrowed with their laughter; getting the scent of her, the curve of her. The lamp was glowing behind her and the barn was golden with hay, and warm.

  “Dear me,” she said. “Is it frightened? And you fight with grown men?” Dimpling now, posturing, her hands round her waist. “Only little I am, mind. Nobody will kill you in here, least of all Jane.”

  What is it that leaps, banishing pain, tensing the muscles, throbbing in the head? A vision of Mari flashed then, her fingers spread, examining her darning, her feet crossed before the fire, but the vision fled as Jane’s hand reached out.

  “Come, Jethro,” she said, and drew me within.

  “Come, Jethro,” said Morfydd beside me, and I swung, hit into reality, the fire exploding as doused with buckets. But the shock of her voice died in shame.

  “Eh, now, here’s a pickle,” said Morfydd. “I guessed you’d be here when Justin called. Just saw him again, going like the wind …” and she peered at my face and gripped me, turning me. “God, there’s a mess. Did Justin do that, or Jane?” and she pushed me aside and turned. White as a sheet was Jane, I noticed, though she flushed a bit under Morfydd’s smile.

  “Not with Jethro, Jane,” said Morfydd. “A pretty little girl you are, mind, and a man could do worse. But this thing’s no good to you, it’s only half grown.” She turned to me. “Home, you. Or I will start slaughtering.”

  Head and shoulders above her I went, being prodded.

  But I was not leaving it at that. Even more determined when the clock from the village struck midnight. Down the stairs with me, boots in hand, through the kitchen, hushing Tara quiet, and out of the back with owls hooting their heads off as I went down to Tarn.